Japan Archives - Round the World Stage

Lilo Baur, Hideki Noda, and Glyn Pritchard
Photo by Terry Lin

A family that’s chained together does not necessarily stay together in One Green Bottle. Acclaimed Japanese playwright Hideki Noda, Artistic Director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, wrote, directed, and stars in this farce, now playing at La MaMa, in association with Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre and Noda’s theater company NODA・MAP.

One Green Bottle features an excellent international and gender-reversed cast, with the Japanese Noda as Mother (Boo), Swiss actress Lilo Baur as Father (Bo), and Welsh actor Glyn Pritchard as Pickle, their teenage daughter. Taking place over the course of one long night, all three family members have plans to go out. But who is going to stay home with their very pregnant dog, Princess? Each selfishly believes his or her own plans are more important than the others. Boo has a ticket to a concert by her favorite boy band; she never gets to go out. Bo, a well-respected theater actor, is attending a meeting he simply cannot miss. And Pickle just has to go out and meet her friends; they are discussing very important things.

It doesn’t take long for the family to fall apart over this conundrum. Secrets are revealed, arguments flare, and the family ends up staying home together anyway, just not at all like they had intended.

One Green Bottle, originally a Japanese play (English translation by Will Sharpe), features music based on Japanese Noh and Kabuki traditions (Genichiro Tanaka) that does a good job of underpinning the various ebbs and flows of the story. Not being too familiar with Noh and Kabuki, it’s unclear to me whether Noda is employing these traditions in the play. I will say that it has a very specific style, with melodramatic dialogue, and a lot of broad physical and slapstick humor. Noda also plays with the concept of time, where sometimes moments are slowed down and sometimes you’re not quite sure how much time has passed.

The set (Yukio Horio) plays an important role as the house, through a series of increasingly absurd events, slowly deteriorates along with the family. The costumes (Kodue Hibino) are also interesting. Pickle wears more modern clothes in stark contrast to the kimono worn by her parents, suggesting she is aching to break free from traditional molds.

What makes One Green Bottle work so well is that it’s not all ruthless backstabbing. Yes, it’s a lot of fun watching this dysfunctional family unravel. But at their most vulnerable moments of desperation is when some honest moments emerge, and real tenderness can be felt.

One Green Bottle is playing through March 8, 2020 at The Ellen Stewart Theatre, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.

Rakugo stage

From a cultural perspective, Rakugo by performer Katsura Sunshine, is a perplexing delight. Translated as “fallen words” and jokingly referred to as “Japanese sit-down comedy,” rakugo is a form of minimalist Japanese comedic storytelling. It involves one performer kneeling on a cushion wearing traditional Japanese garb, telling funny stories and jokes using only two props: a fan and a hand towel. Sunshine’s performance is charming and confident, as he smoothly transitions from the monologue that marks the first half of the show (kind of like a stand-up comic warming up the crowd) to the stories, which range from parables to play on words to personal self-deprecating jokes.

I confess to not knowing anything about rakugo or the performer Katsura Sunshine before seeing Rakugo, aside from knowing the show is Japanese and supposed to be funny. And it certainly is, as performed by Sunshine. However, I wonder how many people in the audience are expecting a Japanese performer because, much to my surprise, one never appears. Yes, Sunshine is not Japanese. He’s a Canadian who wears a kimono while performing this very traditional Japanese art form.

The question that keeps running through my head—in between laughing at jokes—is this cultural appropriation? Granted, Sunshine has lived in Japan 20 years, the last 10 performing rakugo, 3 of those 10 years in an apprenticeship with a rakugo master (a requirement in order to perform). He describes himself as “culturally Japanese” and speaks fluent Japanese. One has to believe he would not be accepted by a master if this were not okay. In his bio he does mention that he is one of only two western rakugo storytellers to ever perform in the 400-year-old history of rakugo in Japan.

But Sunshine only slightly addresses this in the show, instead focusing on bringing what I imagine to be a hybrid eastern-western cultural experience to a wider western audience. He certainly highlights and almost mocks Japanese social conventions, such as their extreme deference to authority, but at the same time he mocks himself and the embarrassing roadblocks he has run into as a westerner in an eastern tradition. While I appreciate the cultural crossover, I’m left wondering what it would be like to see an actual Japanese rakugo storyteller perform. Perhaps it wouldn’t be all that different. I’m eager to visit Japan to find out.

Rakugo is playing four preview performances at the Royal Family Performance Arts Space through Sunday, February 17, 2019 before an Off-Broadway run in March at a theatre TBD. Visit rakugo.lol for details.

Tag: Japan

A dysfunctional family spills the tea in ONE GREEN BOTTLE

Japanese Storytelling Brings Eastern Culture to a Western Audience in RAKUGO

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